Department of Government

International Relations Workshop- Dipali Mukhopadhyay

"'Good' Rebel Governance in Syria"

Fri, January 19, 2018 | PAR 201

1:00 PM - 2:30 PM

In this chapter, we conceptualize rebel governance at the subnational level through an inductive, comparative analysis of two Syrian communities, Raqqa City and the Damascene suburb of Darayya. In so doing, we aim to shed light on the production of localized forms of non-state political authority as part of violent conflict: in Raqqa, the so-called Islamic State’s Islamic Services Administration and, in Darayya, the Darayya Local Council. In the process, we wish to draw greater attention to the so-called peripheries of counter-state-building. As we will argue, those peripheries are, paradoxically, central to the struggle over political authority at the heart of rebellion. The means by which these communities produce different types of governing institutions shape the contours of any larger counter-state-building project. The nature of political authority as it manifests in rebel-governed communities also has serious ramifications for foreign efforts at promoting ‘good’ governance during civil war.